Piltdown Hoax
In 1912, near the Southern English town of Lewes there was an amazing discovery. In a small village named Piltdown, there were Human fossils “discovered”. The fossils consisted of skull fragments and a partial jaw bone of an early Human ancestor. The newspapers dubbed the find, the Piltdown man. Charles Dawson, an armature archeologist, claimed to have found the fossils while digging in a gravel pit. This was however not true. The bones were a carefully fabricated hoax.
Dawson invited Arthur Smith Woodward, England’s leading geologist at the time, and Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin studied geology and paleontology and was at the site for only a short while. Woodward hailed from England’s Natural History Museum. Woodward seemed to wholeheartedly support and believe Dawson, even though he never found fossils of his own, even a long time after Dawson had died. While the three men excavated the site together, and over a course of time Charles Dawson made “stunning finds”. He presumably dug up the partial jawbone and other fragments of the Piltdown individual’s head.
This had a huge effect upon the scientific community. This put England on the map, so to speak. As we try to fathom the motivation for this hoax, let us consider that France, Germany, and Asia had all found fossils of humans. England had not produced an ancient fossil of man, and perhaps this led to some jealousy. Since Woodward was so well favored, no one questioned the validity of Dawson’s find. Woodward was however specialized in fish fossils; not human evolution.
Also, Sir Arthur Keith, England’s leading anatomist, was one of the greatest supporters of Piltdown man. Keith was so inclined because the fossils supported his personal beliefs about human evolution, and that humans developed large brains before they learned to walk bipedally. Scientists have now learned the opposite to be true; Humans learned to walk upright before developing larger brains. When news broke that the Piltdown man had been a hoax, Keith was quiet about the matter.
Another character in the plot is Martin Hinton, a young volunteer and worker at the Natural History Museum. He seemed to be a silent observer to watch all this unfold. He apparently disliked Woodward, which led some to believe that he was a co-conspirator with Dawson.
The Piltdown hoaxer(s) fooled the scientific community for more than forty years. Then the tide began to change. Findings in Asia and Africa did not seem to support the findings found in the small town of Piltdown. The new human ancestor fossils found were hundreds of thousands of years after Piltdown and were less human, not more human like the Piltdown man. In addition the Natural History Museum didn’t allow many outsiders to examine the Piltdown man fossils. Wider access and study may have revealed the true nature or the Piltdown man fossils; even though in those days technology was limited.
Later, around the time of WWII, in 1949 a fluorine test was administered. This test gave surprising results. The bones were much younger than originally thought. In 1953, there was full scale scrutiny of the Piltdown remains with better dating methods than previously available. It became evident that the bones had been stained, cut with steel, and otherwise tampered with. The human-like teeth on the jaw-bone of Piltdown man had evidence of being filed down. Then the killer evidence came when it was discovered that the jawbone was less than 100 years old and came from a female orangutan. The jawbone had been cut, broken, and manipulated to fit a human skull and to erase any signs that the bone was not human. This led the scientists investigating the Piltdown man remains to the understanding that the fossils were forgeries. Charles Dawson became the prime suspect in manipulating the bones, even though he was long gone. Dawson’s possible motivation was that he was an ambitious person and he wanted to be a fellow at the royal society and achieve scientific prestige (which he did). Dawson today is revealed to be undeserving of such titles. He has been known to have forged another half dozen archeological finds over the course of his career.
As far as co-conspirators, there is no evidence on the others, except for perhaps Martin Hinton. He was found to possess many stained bone fragments. Hinton had eventually become a zoologist at the Natural History Museum. When investigators were able to go through Hinton’s things, they found the exact stain (chemically) used on the Piltdown man specimens. This does not prove however that Hinton collaborated with Dawson. Investigators feel that Hinton may have merely been experimenting, on his own, as a means to investigate the fraud durning the 1950’s.
We as humans have our own beliefs about the world, even as scientists the same is true. When we find “evidence” to support our beliefs it is tempting to encourage or spin the evidence in our favor. Since we know that we are predispositioned to do this we must guard against ourselves and our own individual interests. We like to think of scientists as heralds of progress and truthful individuals, but the reality is that even scientists can be corrupt.
Then there is the scenario where people have no regard for the true advancement of science, and in order to advance their own agenda, they are willing to lie and produce forgeries. By doing this they are able to achieve fame, glory, praise, and whatever other benefits; at least temporarily. Unfortunately we as investigators, truth seekers, and scientist have to be on the defensive against such individuals.
Dawson and Hinton are the two main suspects in the Piltdown man hoax, but I think of Keith as an interesting character in this story. Being an expert in anatomy, surely he would have been able to recognize a human jawbone or one that was not human. I wonder if he simply “looked the other way”, and endorsed the Piltdown man for his own pride and gain - which was to promote his beliefs about human evolution. Though it’s not possible to totally remove the “human” factor, and there is no such thing as a human without emotion, we can however, knowing our weakness, guard against such mistakes.
This is just another reminder, among many that face us every day; that life or reality is not the construct we have created. There is a reality all around us that we may never understand objectively, but scientific method is the best tool we have to achieving an objective understanding of our reality.
This is also a lesson that any and all of our accepted scientific theories can be changed, amended, added too, detracted from, and/or can be proven to be true or false. Nothing is written in stone when it comes to science, especially at this time in history. As a civilization we are still learning, and we are still primitive in our scope.
